


Clarity

by Mangacat



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Bingo, Challenge Response, Episode Tag, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Sensory Deprivation, Series Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 08:14:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7883548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangacat/pseuds/Mangacat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will sees the world through sleep. (I’d like to call it a prosaic poem, if you will)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clarity

**Author's Note:**

> This is a ficlet for my hc_bingo prompt “sensory deprivation”. This is from a rewatch, because the first time I watched the series I found it so overwhelmingly beautiful and complete, that I didn’t feel the need to look for fic or even expand upon it in my own mind. Some story stuff is like that. Watching it a second time, it was still very gripping, but I also found myself less intimidated by the vastness of the shows mythology. Still, I have absolutely no idea where this will be going apart from the original premise that popped into my head with the final scenes of season one. Except… is it time yet for the Fall premiere? Please? Also, if you want the full experience, you’ll like to read it with Sigur Rós’ absolutely stunning Daudalogn playing in the background. Because that song is magic.

 

 

Will takes everything with him into the void. The softest touch of lips, the cold cut of the wind, the springy moss underneath his knees, the faded echo of labor pains tugging at the muscles of his stomach. The entirety of human experience that by rights, he should not be able to perceive yet still selfishly takes into himself. A great, knotted, irretrievably tangled ball of sensation that is going to be the fuel that keeps him going, because if his fellow selves know what’s good for them, they won’t let him come up again for some time to come.

 

The void should be a barren, inhospital place. But the inside of his unconscious mind is not empty, far from it. There are memories to rediscover both bodily and emotionally like an overflowing cornucopia. He sometimes rifles through them like a faded photo album, sometimes drowns in them like the most vivid dreams. They’re not all his own either, snatches of lives that have migrated into his mind like little trinkets he’s unconsciously nicked during visits.

 

There’s the sound of music thrumming constantly. Floating notes from piano keys pressed down by lithe, nimble fingers. Deep lasting tribal drums like the beating heart. Cymbals and strings and flutes entwined into an addicting rhythm that makes him want to shake out his limbs and dance with joyful abandon.

 

And yet it’s not enough. All the colourful and overwhelming sensations can barely distract him from the spot in the middle of his chest where his heart should rest, which now feels carved open, raw and _aching_. He keeps looking down, expecting to find a gaping wound, the ashes of his withering soul drifting outwards through his veins like blood poisoning. Yet, there’s nothing so violent to mark the severed connection between him and his other parts, just smooth unblemished skin that feels cool and slightly numb to the touch.

 

Whenever it becomes too unbearable, he breaks off little pieces from the large mound of emotions he took into himself before slipping into artificial sleep. A sharp edged slice of pain from the loss of a child, a sliver of joy over another life saved, a fistful of warm, crumbling rage over betrayal, a chilling crystal of indecision to rub into the place that is painfully silent otherwise.

 

And whenever he feels short of breath, ready to lie down beneath the canopy of images and sounds and touches to grow still and quiet, he reaches down for the rarest, most precious of his burden, a strand of love, so delicate and strong that he almost feels like he could weave them all together into a ball. So much of what he is, of what they are he does not yet understand, hasn’t had the chance to figure out yet. If what connects their cluster truly is a kind of nervous system, than this is a reflex, a reaction so quick and natural that it has no need to travel through conscious thought before it becomes real to them. Among the little tidbits of knowledge or misdirection that the older sensates in his reach have given him, is this fundamental truth: the devotion he feels might have been instantaneous and ethereal in a way that should read as unearned, but he cannot deny it any more than he can deny the blood flowing in his veins or the breath streaming in and out of his lungs.

 

It is with the same certainty that he knows he’ll be here, waiting, until they find a way to let the light back in. To be and feel and breathe, as one.


End file.
